Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: Tom McCune on February 21, 2004, 12:52:03 AM
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Having enjoyed use of Advast (home) on my Desktops (Win98SE; WinXP Pro, FAT32), I tried it on my laptop (
WinXP Pro, NTFS). All is fine, except that immediately after any update of virus definitions, the laptop freezes and I have to use the power button to shut down. I tried switching the laptop account to an admin account, and going to manual updates only, but this has no effect on the problem. Is there a way to resolve this?
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Having enjoyed use of Advast (home) on my Desktops (Win98SE; WinXP Pro, FAT32), I tried it on my laptop (
WinXP Pro, NTFS). All is fine, except that immediately after any update of virus definitions, the laptop freezes and I have to use the power button to shut down. I tried switching the laptop account to an admin account, and going to manual updates only, but this has no effect on the problem. Is there a way to resolve this?
How did you connect to the Internet?
Is it correctly set into the avast! options (dial-up or DSL)?
Are you registered in the avast! site (correct Registration key)?
Does this occur with any other site?
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"How did you connect to the Internet?"
All three machines connect via router to cable modem connection; the laptop via a wireless access point.
"Is it correctly set into the avast! options (dial-up or DSL)?"
Actually, there was not a check mark for either option, but since Avast has no problem identifying the need for updating, and does the download okay, I don't think that is the problem. Regardless, I've now placed the check for always connected (for the laptop).
"Are you registered in the avast! site (correct Registration key)?"
Yes.
"Does this occur with any other site?"
All works fine, except that after virus defintions are downloaded, there is a sudden freeze. They are updated - currently dated 2/20/04. After doing a reboot, all is again fine until the next update is done.
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Sorry if I can't help you more... But, I suggest you choose one of the two options for connection. Are you updating from an admin account?
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Tom, during the last year, I've heard about only a couple of people with the same problem. Unfortunately, they were not enough computer-educated to be of much help when trying to solve it (to put it diplomatically).
Given your home network setup (DSL + WiFi) - of which configuration is not a piece of cake - I suspect you might be the first who could provide us with some real help :)
Here's the plan: we'll wait for the next update; when the computer locks up, we'll invoke a blue scree which will cause the OS to create a crash dump file. You'll then ZIP that file and put it on a web/ftp folder so that I'll be able to download it and analyze it.
Sounds good?
If so, we need to do the following changes:
1. Open Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery ->Settings -> Write Debugging Information and select 'Complete Memory Dump'.
2. Open the registry editor, navigate yourself to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters
and there create a REG_DWORD-typed value named CrashOnCtrlScroll, and set it equal to 1 (or any nonzero value).
3. Reboot the machine.
4. Wait for the lock up to occur
5. When the machine is in stalled state, hold down the rightmost CTRL key, and press the SCROLL LOCK key twice. This will cause a machine to 'blue-screen' and dump of memory will start.
6. After the machine restarts, ZIP the file \Windows\memory.dmp and put it somewhere I can download it. It will be pretty large - namely, it's size will be equal to the size of your RAM (you should make sure there's enough free space on the system disk).
That's about it ;)
If you don't want to do this, just tell - I promise, I won't be mad :)
Thanks
Vlk
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Just a recommendation,use 7-zip for compressing this dump file. 7-zip has much better compression rate than any other archiver.
It will be much easier to upload/download smaller file ;)
www.7-zip.org
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I can do this. My questions:
If doing this right after booting, it seems like there should be no real personal information in the dump? Or is there risk I should be aware of? To be on the safer side, could I email the URL of the file, instead of posting it?
I have 512 MB of RAM. Using WinZip 8.1 SR-1, will this compress small enough to upload to my site that has a maximum allowed space of 200 MB?
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Deflate is somehow the weakest compression methode.
LZMA (7-zip) or RAR (WinRAR) compression would probably shrink it enough. Or simply split into 5 or 10 parts and upload each next after Vlk downloads previous part (my bad english heh). Or create FTP server. This would be a direct upload to Vlk.
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I believe that there shouldn't be much personal information in the file. In any case, e-mail or Private Message is definitelly OK - there is certainly no need to post the URL here!
I would guess it will compress under 200MB - but it's just my opinion. As suggested, you may try WinRAR - it should have slightly better compression ratio.
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I have my site hosted at pair.com. I just looked again at the limits. Mine is actually 100 MB, but that seems to be a daily average, rather than an actual maximum allowed at any one time. So, I'm guessing that I could actually upload the whole compressed file, have it downloaded, and then delete it. I'll post at their news server for confirmation.
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Should there be any problem about it, I think we could find some other way (ftp server).
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Let's discuss the means of transfering the file once we've got it. I believe there will be no problem with that. ;)
If doing this right after booting, it seems like there should be no real personal information in the dump? Or is there risk I should be aware of?
Well, the dump file indeed CAN contain some personal information - it's a complete copy of the whole memory at the time of crash. On the other hand, I really don't have any interest in the contents of the file besides the state of the avast components.
To be on the safer side, could I email the URL of the file, instead of posting it?
Absolutely, actually that's what I meant. I'd never suggest posting the link publicly.
One extra note: the success of this whole procedure is not guaranteed. I.e. I cannot guarantee that with the dump file, we'll be able to solve the problem. But there's a fair chance it'll help us better understand what's going on...
Well actually... do you know that we don't have to wait till the next update? We can generate the same situation on your machine artifically. I can send you and older VPS file that you'd place to the avast folder, forcing the updater to redownload and reinstall the latest one...
What do you say?
Thanks
Vlk
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I'll be glad to do it either way.
I got feedback that I should be able do the upload to my site, but however the file is delivered should be fine. Doing the freeze and dump immediately after a reboot should leave the file pretty free of passwords, etc. It seems the least I can do for the cause (this free AV software).
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OK, thanks. You can do it this way:
1. Download the file http://cat.asw.cz/~vlk/400.vps and put it to the <avast>\data\ folder (overwrite existing)
2. Open the file <avast>\setup\setup.ini, and in the [Parts] section, there should be a line saying this
part.vps=vps-40200
Change this line to read
part.vps=vps-30906
3. Delete the files <avast>\setup\vps*.vpu (there should be 2 of those)
4. Restart the machine.
After the restart, you should be notified that a virus database update is available (provided you've set the updating to 'Ask' instead of 'Automatic')
After the machine freezes, follow the procedure described in my earlier post (double-press Scroll-Lock while holding the right Ctrl key down, invoking a BSOD).
Thanks
Vlk
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I've done all the above, and got the update. This did lead to the freeze, but it is not a total freeze. I can move the cursor around, but not do anything else. Trying the start menu, or launching an application does nothing. Trying to open a text file on the desktop results it the icon being selected, and an hour glass, but nothing else.
After a few minutes, I tried to induce the BSOD and dump, but nothing happened. After rebooting, as expected, there was no memory dump.
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Such a freeze would be OK.
Obvious question - did you enter the registry thing correctly, and have you rebooted since entering it?
Thanks
Vlk
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I've done all the above, and got the update. This did lead to the freeze, but it is not a total freeze. I can move the cursor around, but not do anything else. Trying the start menu, or launching an application does nothing.
Sounds like a problem that I had a week ago except that in my case this happened in user account only (not admin).
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=2715
I solved my problem few days ago. I think the problem was c:\windows\temp directory where avast! saves/deletes some temporary files during the definition update. As a user I didn't have enough rights to this directory (I was even unable to view the content of it). I solved this by moving the XP's temp directory to the shared folder. After that I've had no problems.
Anyway, in your case it must be something else if updating didn't work in admin account.
-- Jeccu --
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Such a freeze would be OK.
Obvious question - did you enter the registry thing correctly, and have you rebooted since entering it?
Thanks
Vlk
Yes I did all changes as stated, with double and triple checking everything. I've done multiple reboots.
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Is your keyboard connected via USB?
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Sounds like a problem that I had a week ago except that in my case this happened in user account only (not admin).
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=2715
I solved my problem few days ago. I think the problem was c:\windows\temp directory where avast! saves/deletes some temporary files during the definition update. As a user I didn't have enough rights to this directory (I was even unable to view the content of it). I solved this by moving the XP's temp directory to the shared folder. After that I've had no problems.
Anyway, in your case it must be something else if updating didn't work in admin account.
-- Jeccu --
I had originally installed from an admin acct, and the problem was in my limited user account that I normally use. I have since changed my limited user account to an admin account, where the problem remains. I'm wondering if I should consider uninstalling, and then reinstalling from this account while it is still an admin account, and see if this resolves the problem. And if so, they seeing what happens when it goes back to a limited user account.
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Is your keyboard connected via USB?
This is a laptop, with no external connections, unless you count the WiFi card.
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Laptop? Which brand? I'm asking because it might be a bit more difficult to press the ScrollLock key on a non-101 key keyboard. Have you tried it with the Fn key down?
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I apologize for frustration this may cause. I decided that rather than trying again, and perhaps stumbling onto the answer of key combination to do the dump, and then sending my RAM contents that I don't really feel comfortable with sending, I tried a reinstall. The reinstall didn't really go well, and I think I've just spent way too much time on this for now.
I really like Avast on my desktops and will continue with it there, but have for now returned to what was working well for me with this laptop. I do appreciate all the help, and hope you can understand my decision to move on for now.
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Well, no problem, I understand and respect your decision... :-\
Thanks for your time
Vlk
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I appear to have found the problem. I deactivated PGP's auto wipe on delete option, reinstalled Avast a couple days ago, have done updates including today's, and all has been problem free. When I was using NAV, that PGP option gave me difficulty with some file deletions, leading me to think it might be a similar complication with Avast. BTW, AVG has no problem with that option.
I decided to try again after seeing how difficult it is with AVG to simply delete an email received in Pegasus that has the Netsky attached, and having seen how easy it was with Avast on my desktop. Since I receive that on a daily basis, the inconvenience was significant.
An issue with Avast, is that I can't do email scanning with it, since it won't allow me to send email out through my RoadRunner SMTP server as being from my mccune.cc email address. This is even when just setting it for incoming scanning.
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fwiw:
on ony of the systems i administer - xp pro german with avast!4 german - these freezes have happened three times in arow now. - waiting for the next iavs update ...
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fwiw:
on ony of the systems i administer - xp pro german with avast!4 german - these freezes have happened three times in arow now. - waiting for the next iavs update ...
what permissions are rewuired for avast! in %systemroot%temp?
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I have to admit I was wrong.
I solved my problem few days ago. I think the problem was c:\windows\temp directory where avast! saves/deletes some temporary files during the definition update. As a user I didn't have enough rights to this directory (I was even unable to view the content of it). I solved this by moving the XP's temp directory to the shared folder. After that I've had no problems.
This problem seems to have nothing to do with c:\windows\temp directory. I still have the same problem. I didn't know this because I was using avast with "Ask when update is available" setting for a while (it works just fine). Now I'm using the setting "Automatic" and administrator account and my computer has freezed three times a row also.
I don't know anymore. I've tried almost everything. Maybe it's related to XP's language version somehow...? I'm using a finnish version of XP Home.
-- Jeccu --
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I don't know anymore. I've tried almost everything. Maybe it's related to XP's language version somehow...? I'm using a finnish version of XP Home.
Mh. I have three machines here. Two with English OS and English avast and one with German OS and German avast. The problem only occurs on the "German" machine.
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Hmmm. Very interesting... I was just informed that my mother-in-law's computer does the same thing, hangs after automatic update. She also has a finnish version of XP Home and avast Home.
So, the question is: Is there anyone at this forum who is using other than english version of XP and avast with automatic update setting? Does it work?
-- Jeccu --
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So, the question is: Is there anyone at this forum who is using other than english version of XP and avast with automatic update setting? Does it work?
-- Jeccu --
I know you have a problem but the answer to your question will be infinite...
I think there are tons of non-English users for whom avast! updates work perfectly. In Portuguese everything ok both for Windows XP Home and Professional. ;)
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It did it again!
Todays virus definiton update freezes my girlfriends system (XP Pro German w/ avast!4 Home German) while my system (XP Pro English w/ avast!4 Home English) updated just fine.
I would really like to hear an official comment form a member of the avast! team on this behavior.
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Drahnier, please run command
ashbug /setuplog
Put some details in the window (for example this link), your username here and your mail address. Be sure you're running the last available program version.
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Drahnier, please run command
ashbug /setuplog
Put some details in the window (for example this link), your username here and your mail address. Be sure you're running the last available program version.
just did so - actually you will get this crash report three times because I couldn't figure out how to use newlines in the crash debug's dialog box ...
Additional notes:
- This freeze does not happen with all data base updates. But it happened with the last one and at least four previous updates.
- Whenever my girl fried showed me her freezed computer she had been working with Microsoft Word (Office 2002 Suite).